Are Millennials Buying Real Estate?

According to Spencer Rascoff, the CEO of Zillow Group, millennials buy real estate far more than people think that they do. In fact, millennials spent $500 billion in real estate in the last 12 months. However, millennials do approach buying real estate in different ways than previous generations.

Millennials often go straight to the Internet for information, and real estate information is no exception. More than any other generation, and more than ever before, millennials are finding both properties and agents online. The internet has made the process of buying a home or investing in real estate easier and more accessible than ever. Instead of investing loads of time in calling agency after agency and inspecting property after property, millennials do much of the home buying process from their computer or smartphone.

Millennials, more than any other generation, are borrowing money to spend on real estate. They often borrow money for down payments from friends and families. While this may not always be a reliable solution, it is oftentimes necessary in order for millennials to get their foot in the door. This is because millennials often have a hard time finding homes that they can afford on their own. This is the result of a variety of factors. Many millennials face student debt higher than in previous generations and find themselves working low paying jobs. Oftentimes, these jobs are not even in the fields that they dedicated time studying to work in. However, by borrowing money from those around them, they have a springboard from which they can jump into the housing market.

Millennials now make up a large part of the real estate market. Although they often face financial hardships greater than those of previous generations as a result of inflation and wage stagnation, they end up having similar views towards home ownership to those of the generations that came before them. While renting is a very popular method that opens up a gateway to home ownership for them, millennials also often take out loans to pay for their properties. While this can backfire (and often results in a lot of debt), the end result is more millennials buying up real estate.

Millennials may not always be putting themselves in positive situations by buying homes, but they often do anyway and now make up a large section of the real estate market.